Welcome to The Queue — your daily distraction of curated video content sourced from across the web. Today, we’re watching a video essay about the many metaphorical fridges in the David Fincher movies.
There are a couple of words that come to mind when I think of director David Fincher. Cold is one of them. Bleak is another. He is, as The New York Times proclaimed: a purveyor of beautiful bummers. But in my opinion, one of the biggest descriptors in the word cloud is precise.
Fincher’s films are controlled, almost to the point of being clinical. He’s not the type to waste an on-screen opportunity and makes every detail count. Now, this is, ostensibly, true of most films. Directors have a great deal of control over what finally winds up in the frame, from lighting to prevalent colors to the mise-en-scène. But Fincher feels different in that I expect him to be exacting and intentional in a way I don’t of other directors.
So, when a recurring detail presents itself in a Fincher film, you’d be forgiven for digging into its metaphorical significance. And sometimes a fridge is more than just a fridge. Yes, in Fincher’s cool, calculating hands, this commonplace appliance is anything but common. What we eat says a lot about who we are, and fridges have a way of hinting at more than just our grocery habits. From questioning domesticity to humanizing protagonists (and dehumanizing others), here’s a look at the many meaningful fridges in the work of David Fincher:
Watch “What’s in the Box? David Fincher’s Fridges”:
Who made this?
Established in 1981 and focused on arthouse films, De Filmkrant is the largest independent film magazine in the Netherlands. You can check out their official website (in Dutch) here. And you can follow them on Twitter here.
More Videos Like This
- For another taste of De Filmkrant‘s work, here’s a video essay on the many ways Steven Spielberg dramatizes the dinner table.
- Here’s another sample of De Filmkrant‘s work: a montage love letter to on-screen projectionists in movies.
- Here’s a final video from De Filmkrant that shows how two different scenes reveal the way movies depict a thought process.
- Queue favorite the Nerdwriter has a wonderful breakdown on how David Fincher hijacks your eyes.
- And here’s a classic essay from Every Frame a Painting on why David Fincher’s directorial style is not about what he does, but what he doesn’t.
- Like many directors, before he made films, David Fincher made music videos. Here’s Patrick (H) Willems with an overview of Fincher’s career in music videos.
- It’s been a decade since The Social Network. Here’s a look back on how Fincher’s Facebook film peeked into the future.
Related Topics: David Fincher, The Queue
